Entangled yarns: Banaras weavers and social crisis

Cloth has, since the earliest periods of human history, symbolised the essence of social relations as well as articulated the relationship between human beings and the domain of the sacred. The metaphor of cloth has often been used to describe the content and texture of human social relations but as has been pointed by Schneider and Weiner (1989) social scientists have not only confined themselves to describing and analysing social connectedness but also the softness and fragility of the materials which reflect and capture the frailty and the transient nature of the human condition, subject to the degenerative processes of illness, decay and death(Weiner and Schneider 1989:2). The philosopher-saint of the weavers, Kabir uses another metaphor, that of the body and its cosmic dimensions and compares the cloth that is woven to the three nerves, eight grooves, the five elements and three gunas (qualities or essences). He highlights the sacred nature of the cloth woven and the profane manner in which it is used by humans and contrasts it with his own devotion and surrender to the Almighty. The present monograph deals with the impact of the crisis since the latter part of the 1990s on the families of the weavers
when many macro processes converged to alter the worlds and lives of the weavers irrevocably. The focus is on the consequences for the family since the artisanal family has been the locus of the weaving industry. An important and continuing element of the Banarasi silk industry is that the relations between Hindus and Muslims is embedded in and intertwined with the relations of production in this artisanal cottage industry. The manner in which these relations have transformed over different phases of the evolution of the industry also constitutes a significant context within which the industry has to be viewed and analysed. The Banarasi sari industry has been very much the preserve of Muslims
historically and even in the present their imprint continues to be indelible although the traders have been mainly Hindu mercantile groups and significant numbers of Hindu OBC groups and dalits have taken to weaving over many decades, i.e. approximately since the 1930s and more specifically, in more recent times, between the 1970s and 1990s. However, the master weavers have remained and continue to remain overwhelmingly Muslims. Therefore the emphasis in this monograph is on the Muslims, while dealing with the consequences for Hindu weaving groups from the lower castes as well. At the same time, gender relations are interwoven within the fabric of the artisanal sari industry and constitute another significant element of the industry, more so in the context of the current crisis and its impact on families.